Leaf diagnosis?

[Emilya Green]

Thanks, @Emilya . Overwatering was not part of this. Except when up-potting, the initial watering was plenty to settle the soil down. In any event, the new growth today looks healthy. Will post one.

what happened to all the lower leaves? Overwatering is usually watering too often, and not letting the soil dry out all the way to the bottom between waterings. This can atrophy the lower root system, and the result often looks like this.

 

[Emeraldo]

As a seedling, this plant was in a very low-nutrient seedling soil mix with 50% perlite. I think I left the seedling in that small pot of 50/50 soil/perlite too long, about 6 weeks after popping and putting a tap root through a rooter plug. Watering was done sparingly and with a spray bottle. These plants are incredibly vigorous and just kept on growing; overwatering did not occur as far as I can tell, that usually slows them way down, which didn't happen here. I top-dressed the seedling with a tsp of supersoil when N was needed. It was after up-potting about 10 days ago, I started seeing the lower initial set of leaves turn yellow and crispy just like the triple leaf set in first photo. Those are the leaves I pulled off. It seemed to me that the shot of K in the seaweed extract helped stop that. Which reinforced my thinking that the K-sources I used in mixing my soil hadn't become available yet or were not enough. Glad to have the seaweed, which is immediately usable.

Besides overwatering, what comes to mind besides K-def? Am glad you could confirm that in part.

Thanks! Here's the photo from June 2 and again from today:

PHxM02.06.22.jpeg

• Emeraldo
• Jun 2, 2022

Purple Haze x Malawi

PHxM11.06.22.jpg

• Emeraldo
• Jun 11, 2022

 

[Emilya Green]

Maybe you atrophied the lower roots by not watering enough? I don't know, but something big time is wrong here... that and just not having enough nutrition. I can't see what a tsp of supersoil is going to do for the grow, without also applying microbes to process that supersoil.

 

[Emeraldo]

@423 - sorry to hijack your thread! Maybe a "leaf diagnosis" thread is a good idea! Be well and enjoy your grow.

 

[Emeraldo]

Maybe you atrophied the lower roots by not watering enough? I don't know, but something big time is wrong here... that and just not having enough nutrition. I can't see what a tsp of supersoil is going to do for the grow, without also applying microbes to process that supersoil.

You could be right. I gave very little water, but pretty often. In a fairly small pot with that 50/50 perlite mix in it, the seedling needed nutrition, that's clear. The seedling soil was pretty barren stuff. But I didn't want to re-pot it yet because the perlite mix would just crumble. So I waited to allow the roots to reach the bottom before transplanting. In the meantime the only way I could think of feeding was to topdress with incrementally larger amounts of supersoil, first just a tsp (which the plant really appreciated), and then two and three teaspoons on the top, watered in with the spray bottle.

Finally, the transplanting was done with a 6-week old. It was a week or so after the up-potting that I realised I had not mixed readily usable K in the soil mix. That's how I came to the idea that this was a K-def. If that's not it, then I don't know what the problem was. Do you think the plant is still unhappy?

 

[Emilya Green]

Do you think the plant is still unhappy?

As long as there are yellow leaves, yes.

 

[Emeraldo]

Don't you mean if more leaves, upper leaves turn yellow? I don't really expect the yellowed older lower leaves to change back to green. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[423]

@423 - sorry to hijack your thread! Maybe a "leaf diagnosis" thread is a good idea! Be well and enjoy your grow.

I don't mind a bit. And a thread about a leaf problem that Emilya is looking at is a good place to get help always good help there.

I'm dabbling in some organics also and I've had pretty good success with Bioag Cytoplus.
I think it's a good broad supplement that's supposed to be organic.

I've had really happy looking plants with it. You have to mix it with warm water like blackstrap molasses to get it to dissolve good.